In his article "City Park still receiving input on controversy," on 3/19/09, Brian Allee-Walsh accurately notes that "the City Park situation is reminiscent of the one at Audubon Golf Club, which, despite public outcry, underwent a $6 million renovation in 2002," and quotes Audubon golf director Stan Stopa, who refers to "that foolishness" with regard to having "to fight with those people, just to do what we have here now".

Let's be clear on what "we have here now" at Audubon really means. In 2001, Audubon Nature Institute officials claimed their new golf course was necessary to provide operational funds for maintenance of the park, whose poor maintenance was a regular source of complaint by park users. The ANI produced a market study by Golf Resource Associates that projected a positive net cash flow from the new facility of $140,525 in the first year, steadily increasing to $370,141 in year five.

The reality is that the new Audubon Golf Course has been a huge money loser from the outset, including its much-heralded first full year of 2003, when it had an operating loss of $336,300. In its fifth year, 2007, despite being the only public course available in the city at that time, it lost $415,819. In fact, the last year golf made any profit at Audubon was 2000, the year before the new course was begun.

Just like at Audubon in 2001, City Park officials are now justifying this $46 million plan as a way to bring in needed revenue for support of the park. It is exactly because of what happened at Audubon that makes so many people suspicious of City Park's golf plans now.

Developers of "controversial" projects in New Orleans are very fond of claiming that those who oppose their plans are always the same people, and always driven by fear or dislike of "progress". Rarely do they concede that it's the flaws in their plans that create the opposition in the first place.

Debra Howell